Greetings from Flagstaff, AZ

Getting ready to get some chickens! A friend recommended this forum. I am in the process of converting an old play fort into a chicken coop. I have a question: does the coop need to be totally waterproof? We get a lot of rain and snow here. I've found it is harder to convert something than start from scratch (!) and there are a few cracks. I am doing this with almost all recycled/reclaimed materials, which is a challenge, just sort of fitting it all together jigsaw style. My apologies if this topic has already been addressed here.....I call myself hayseed for a reason!

LareePQG, found the AZ thread. Just figuring out how to navigate around here, thanks for the tip!

I have a ton of questions as you all can imagine, next one involves local ponderosa pine wood chips, as in: can I use them to cover the ground inside the coop instead of hay or whatnot?! On a budget here, and know where I can get a ton of them....anyone have any experience with this sort of scraping by lifestyle?!

Use sand. Never hay. It gets wet and moldy at the drop of a hat. Wood chips are ok, but they can be dusty.

I have sand in the coop and dirt/sand in the run. Sand is easy--if you are REALLY dedicated, you can cat-scoop the poo every day. If not, it is easy to rake. You just have to be wary of holes the chickens dig to dust bathe in.

Thanks for the info about the hay, (which I probably meant straw...not much of a farmer here, yet). We don't have much of a dust problem here, snow problem is more like it! Then again, I've never had chickens, so maybe it's about to get dusty too?!

I think I will try the wood chips. They will be free to run around the yard and take a dust bath, as soon as my dog & cat, and everyone sort of "gets to know each other" ?!! Hoping for the best on that front!